RESPECTED university lecturer Adriana Ford-Thompson saw her husband jailed for the violent rape of a student this week yet insists he's a 'kind and gentle' man

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Adriana faces at least 11 years without Thompson [PH]

ADRIANA Ford-Thompson has three degrees, including a doctorate. She has written learned papers and reports, including one for a government department.

And she has travelled widely to countries as far afield as Tanzania, Honduras, Indonesia and Albania. In short, she is a wordly-wise egghead.

And yet she is also the living embodiment of the expression "love is blind".

After Mark Thompson, 37, her husband of five years, was jailed for life for the violent rape of a female student this week she described him as "kind, soft and gentle" and added: "Mark and I will face the future with courage, love and patience."

To understand how a 31-year-old, who is as beautiful as she is brainy and so sensitive to the fate of the world that she has devoted her life to environmental causes, came to end up with such an unlikely soul-mate we need to go back to the origins of their relationship.

The couple first met 10 years ago in the Tanzanian city of Arusha where Adriana was conducting research for her MSc in environmental technology at Imperial College and Thompson was giving free martial arts lessons to local people.

It was certainly a case of opposites attracting. She was a Cambridge graduate and lover of wildlife drawing, tropical-fish-keeping and cats.

Mark and I will face the future with courage, love and patience

Adriana Ford-Thompson

He had grown up in Jamaica and after moving to London at the age of 16 had become a kickboxer.

Perhaps it was a mutual interest in keeping fit that helped them gel. Adriana was also an outdoor type who was keen on running, squash, hiking and camping.

Whatever it was that brought them together, all seemed well as she studied wildlife monitoring and antipoaching activities while her boyfriend pursued his passion for martial arts. Indeed, by the time they moved south to the region of Kilwa in October 2006 they were engaged.

But it was not long before there were the first indications of trouble in paradise.

Adriana was going to Kilwa to work as a research and communications officer with the Mpingo Conservation and Development Initiative, a nongovernmental organisation whose work includes preserving Mpingo, the east African Blackwood tree, one of the most valuable timbers in the world, which is used to make wind instruments such as clarinets and oboes.

The nearest town of any note was the Indian Ocean port of Kilwa Masoko, today one of Tanzania's budding new holiday destinations with snorkelling and scuba diving, sea fishing and a nearby game reserve among its attractions.

But the couple did not settle well and left after six months, making what is described by one local as a "rapid departure".

The source makes clear that this was no reflection on Adriana's work, which was "very good".

He adds elliptically: "It was apparent even back then that Adriana was extremely loyal to her then fiancee in what were also rather trying circumstances, albeit not nearly as horrendous as more recent events.

"In case you are tempted to infer more from this than you should I can clarify that Mark Thompson was not in any public or legal trouble during his time here." He would not elaborate.

Their next stop was back in England where Adriana was given a place on a four-year PhD programme at York University to study environmental management.

The couple moved into a terraced house on a quiet street in the Fulford area of the city near an industrial site on the banks of the River Ouse and their relationship prospered to the extent that two years later they were married.

Life for a married couple on a student's stipend was never going to be particularly comfortable and Mark Thompson set up Doctor Bird Decorating to offer "painting and decorating services in and around York".

To facilitate this business he invested in the white van that was to play such a sinister part in his later evil-doing.

Alongside Doctor Bird, Mark Thompson ran Kilimanjaro Dojo, a martial arts consultancy that offered "one-to-one and small group classes in self-defence" at £20 per person for a 90-minute class.

He helped to promote Kilimanjaro by making a series of YouTube videos under the moniker Dragon Heart General in which he demonstrated kickboxing moves in traditional Oriental costume.

One video offers an insight into the extent to which he had been assimilated into his wife's academic circle.

The pony-tailed young man wearing protective pads on his hands to help Thompson demonstrate his moves is a York archaeology graduate called Sam Herbertson.

Their neighbours certainly never spotted anything amiss.

Students Ella Johnson and Pete Jolliff, who live in the same cul-de-sac, said yesterday: "They seemed a nice, approachable couple and often said 'Hi'.

"We didn't know them well at all but saw him teaching martial arts classes down by the river.

I saw her walking her cat on a lead once, which we thought was really odd but pretty funny."

In 2011 Adriana completed her thesis on conservation, society and invasive species.

By now she had decided that a career in academia beckoned and that autumn she embarked on yet another course, this time a postgraduate certificate in academic practice.

It was this qualification that led to her being offered the teaching and research fellowship at York University that she holds to this day.

CLOSE: Adriana and her husband in a picture together [PH]

Six months ago her respectable middle-class existence was shattered at a stroke.

On the evening of October 29 last year a 21-year-old female undergraduate was walking home from her job at a city-centre club in York.

Her misfortune was to fall into the path of Mark Thompson, who grabbed her, put her in a headlock and dragged her into his waiting van.

Once inside he told his victim: "You have two options: you can give me what I want and tell nobody what has happened or tonight is the night you die."

Over the next five hours he subjected her to an ordeal of unimaginable horror, raping her three times as he drove her around the city.

At one point he attempted to explain his actions by saying he was raping her because "he didn't get sex from his wife".

It was only when he stopped at a red light that his victim was able to escape the van and run through the streets until she fell into the arms of a retired policeman.

Thanks to her testimony Thompson was arrested the next day.

He denied the charges arguing that the girl had stopped to show him her outfit and then entered his van voluntarily to have sex.

Faced with multiple charges of kidnap, rape and attempted rape in court later, he stuck to his story arguing his only crime was adultery. "I have committed a sin," he said.

"I think that is between me and my wife."

But the case led other victims to come forward and in sentencing Thompson to life imprisonment with a recommendation he serve a minimum of 11 years, the judge said: "You are one of the most dangerous offenders I have ever had to deal with in my entire judicial career."

There was no reply when the Daily Express called at Adriana's home in Fulford yesterday, which still has Thompson's Samurai swords and martial arts paraphernalia in the windows.

Asked whether Adriana has been given compassionate leave while the media storm rages around her a university spokesman responds with a gruff: "No comment."

And the editor of the student website York Vision claims the lovelorn lecturer is not the talk of the campus because it is "exam season".

Naturally Adriana's neighbours can think of little else. Rebecca Boldry, who knows her through friends, said: "She is a really, really nice lady. My heart goes out to her, it really does. I can't imagine the turmoil she must be going through. She doesn't deserve this."

Ella Johnson is less sanguine. "It is horrifying what he has done and as a young woman I find it concerning having lived next door for two and a half years and knowing now what he has done to other people," she said.

"Thankfully he's in jail now."

She added: "Seeing the police raid their house and rip up duvets has made us feel unsafe, definitely."

Another neighbour, who didn't want to be named, said: "It's incredibly shocking to read what he did.

I find it frightening. I have young children and we have been living here for a few years now and knew nothing.

She is very quiet and we've never spoken but he always seemed fairly pleasant."

Adriana attended every day of her husband's nine-day trial and she is said to have been the only person to have visited him in prison.

His victim's mother has said: "I find it very strange. He's obviously a very good liar."

As Adriana contemplates a minimum of 11 years staving off her doubts about her husband's version of events news comes of another blow.

According to yet another neighbour, Adriana's landlord is "kicking her out". Not because of her husband's crimes but because he has just discovered that she keeps a cat.